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Mike Kocheck loves coming to work. After spending more than 40 years in the industrial construction business, Kocheck retired seven years ago only to find himself with a new full-time job and a new passion—Fairfield Golf Center in Fairfield, Ohio.
Most days, you can find the 70-year-old Kocheck out on the range, mending leaks in the river running through the Mountain Golf miniature golf course, painting fences or manicuring the grass. There’s more than enough to keep him busy and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I never dread coming in here,” Kocheck says. “And this kind of maintenance isn’t hard. You just have to keep on it on a regular basis. If you let things go, that’s when you’ve got trouble.”
Kocheck doesn’t plan on letting things go at the golf center, though he’s still relatively new to the “hands on” part of running a driving range. He and his family have owned the 33-acre tract of land beneath the facility since the center first opened in 1993 (and some parcels of that tract for many years before). The Kochecks leased the property to a golf group that operated the facility for several years under the Family Golf Centers flag, after Kocheck and some other local businessmen designed the original layout.
In 2001, a year after Family Golf Centers went bankrupt, Kocheck made the trek to New York for the corporation’s big liquidation sale and gained control of the business. He has quickly gone about turning the facility back into a true “family” golf center.
He and his wife of 45 years, Juanita, are among the six full-time employees, and in the summer, their two grown daughters pitch in while on break from their public school teaching careers. There are grandchildren on board, too, working odd jobs and helping to keep the family business going.
“We all like to stay involved,” says Kocheck. “And it’s not just my family. We’ve got a lot of good people here and that’s our real strength, our people.”
Kocheck is the first to admit that he’s no expert on golf. He plays “maybe four or five times a year,” and his first real introduction to the range business was when he decided to take over the golf center. His lack of experience in golf certainly hasn’t been an impediment so far, and maybe that’s because Kocheck has people skills and common sense in spades.
“The advice I have for anybody, whether it’s the construction business or here [on the golf range], is to get there early, work hard and stay late,” he says. “I may not be the smartest guy in the world but I can outwork you, and if I do that every day, I’m going to be successful.”
Bouncing Back
When it opened in 1993, Fairfield Golf Center was a showcase facility and quickly became an integral part of the local community, supplying family recreation and a business meeting place for the rapidly growing region, just 20 miles north of Cincinnati.
There, just off the ever-growing Route 4 and the nearby junction with the Route 4 bypass, nearly 70,000 cars drive past the 14-foot-tall Fairfield Golf Center sign daily, and for locals, the facility is already a known commodity.
But before Kocheck took over three years ago, the previous ownership had let the center and its grounds deteriorate. The sprinkler system had broken and the grass suffered. The spacious clubhouse needed touch-up paint and the plumbing was in disrepair. Fences around the various amenities either had fallen down or were in serious need of a fresh coat of paint. Eight of the nine stalls in the batting cage didn’t operate, and the roof over the entire cage was in bad condition.
Kocheck doesn’t like to talk about those things, quickly apologizing for even mentioning them, though after prodding, he estimates he has spent “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in improvements since taking over. He’s not the type to ever dwell on the negative and for him, it was just a matter of rolling up his shirtsleeves and making everything better again.
“I wanted to improve everything,” he says. “That’s something I could do. And that’s important. Every year I want to upgrade, make this place better than it was the previous year.”
The grass came first. When the sprinklers didn’t work, the previous owners just stopped watering the grounds. Brown patches and weedy grass became the norm. Kocheck tracked down the cracks and leaks in the irrigation system, primarily Toro, and now the rye and fescue landing area is once again picture-postcard perfect, and the bentgrass greens in the putting and chipping areas are green and clean.
The Kochecks also have spruced up the place with the addition of hundreds of flowers. From the lilacs that dot the path from the parking lot to the clubhouse to the array of petunias, impatiens, chrysanthemums and daylilies all over, the flora lends to the homey, friendly atmosphere Fairfield conveys. Juanita and some of her friends from St. Gabriel’s Church plant and maintain the flowers, and it’s a part of the job that her husband says she loves.
Kocheck also has friends who like to come out and help him around the range. At 70, he’s often the youngest of his over-the-hill gang.
“People wonder where I get all these old people but I’m just blessed with good friends,” he says. “I got a carpenter out here with the hands of a surgeon and he’s 72. I’ve got another guy [who’s] 74, and they come out here three days a week to help out.”
Kocheck and his contemporaries put a new roof on the batting cage this year, and the stalls—seven for baseball and two for softball—are in pitch-perfect condition and bringing in softball and baseball players from throughout the diamond-sport-crazy region.
Recently, Kocheck has been working atop the miniature golf mountain structure, fixing leaks that were making the course soggy. Two 6-inch pumps at the base of the mountain pump water throughout the 18-hole layout and then down through river troughs and over rocks.
“You get leaks in the rivers and it comes out into the land and makes it a little soggy,” explains Kocheck. “You’ve got to keep the sidewalks dry” for customer safety.
At least the water that was spilling over this spring was cleaner than before. Another 2004 upgrade was the installation of a new chlorination system on the miniature golf course. “It’s a lot better now,” says Kocheck of the system purchased from a nearby Dayton-based company. “Instead of somebody walking by and saying we need a little chlorination today, now the system just does it automatically.”
The miniature golf course is one of the facility’s most popular amenities, and Kocheck is considering building a second course near the front of the center where it would be more visible to passers-by. Fairfield charges $7 for adults to play the current course and $5 for kids. Coupons that include a round of miniature golf have been one of the center’s most successful promotions.
“We had a program where families could buy one pass and get 100 pitches in softball or baseball, 100 balls on the range and a round of putt-putt for 15 bucks,” says Kocheck of a promotion he’s thinking about running again. “People really seemed to like that and it just made it more family-oriented than someone just coming out to hit a bucket of balls.”
From Family Golf Center to a Family Golf Center
It’s working with his own family in providing other families with recreation that’s at the core of Kocheck’s return from retirement. He arrives at Fairfield Golf Center every morning between 8 and 9, and he’s usually there until 11 at night. He puts off his vacation until the winter when business slows down.
The Kochecks have always been active in the community and they love opening the facility’s doors to charities and philanthropic organizations, including the Boy and Girl Scouts of Cincinnati, the Wellness Society of Cincinnati, a national prosthetic association and numerous church groups.
The golf center is also set up to host business meetings. Because of the heavy industrial growth in the immediate area, the center has become a prime meeting spot for local corporations looking for getaways or off-site meeting space. The 9,000-square-foot clubhouse includes a meeting room with space for 30 people, and another separate classroom, complete with chalkboard and multimedia capability, that can accommodate up to 15.
Kocheck likes to pursue corporate outings actively in the late fall when the range business typically slows, and because of the great numbers of local manufacturers and businesses that are now his neighbors along Route 4, that practice has been highly successful.
“We’ve got a packaging company, a softwater [system] manufacturer and a desk maker around close,” he says. “All kinds of manufacturers—the good part of America, people building things, helping us all grow.”
Despite the strong corporate presence, Kocheck’s greatest delight is still catering to families. “I love on a Friday or Saturday night seeing mom and dad and three kids out there hitting balls,” he says with a smile. “I think the place is pretty much targeted for that. The bulk of this business is always the guy who comes in regularly and practices, but we’ve built up a really nice thing as far as the different kind of golfers and the different ages we attract.”
Kocheck believes a big part of that success is in the friendly family atmosphere. And this is no act just for show. This place is run by a family and they are friendly.
Juanita works the front counter in the main lobby where customers buy their tokens for the range ball dispenser and the batting cages. She’s quick to greet everyone with a smile and a friendly word, and sets the pace for the whole center, according to her husband.
“You couldn’t ask for a better partner,” he says. “When we got this opportunity, I was really serious about not letting [the center] go into someone else’s hands and she has supported me all the way.”
Not being an avid golfer, Kocheck doesn’t seem the likeliest of candidates to run such a successful golf range. But he says it’s the people he enjoys, and that desire translates into any business venture.
He loves talking about his employees. One, Kellen Lyons, has worked at the center since he was a freshman in high school. Lyons, now a sophomore at Wright State University, still works at Fairfield Golf Center nearly full time. He and his mother run the miniature golf course, and Lyons has been a jack-of-all-trades, eager to take on any job.
“You ask why I like doing this so much, it’s because I like being around good people like that,” Kocheck says. “I like being out on the range and meeting the customers. We want to be customer-oriented.”
Professional Golf Know-How
But how does a golf range owner/operator who isn’t an avid golfer make his facility appealing to customers who are?
Kocheck’s answer is the same: Surround yourself with good people who know what they’re doing. And that’s just what he’s done in his teaching program and in his pro shop. Thirty-year teaching veteran Pete Nelson is the PGA pro at Fairfield and he runs the center’s extensive instruction program, including private and group lessons, the fundamentals-based junior curriculum scheduled for this fall and the popular Fairfield Golf University, a series of quarterly seminars that cover topics such as “How to Survive a Round of Golf with Your Spouse” or “The History of the Golf Club.” The seminars, offered free of charge, average about 15 students each and help widen the center’s customer base.
“We have a lot of fun with those, and I don’t think you can charge people for everything,” Kocheck adds. “It’s nice to give them something free every now and then.”
Another popular teaching offering, just begun last year, is the Complete Golf Fitness program, a winter swing workshop that emphasizes stretching and indoor swing drills. Nelson, who also specializes in club repair, doesn’t go for a lot of the fancy, automated teaching gimmicks, preferring a much more one-on-one, hands-on approach, but the golf classroom gives the facility a unique space to offer seminars and special clinics.
It was Kocheck’s idea to build the classroom, complete with an instructional library of books and tapes and a video system from JC Video Systems for swing analysis.
And Nelson isn’t the only certified teacher at Fairfield. Pro shop manager John Hill is a PGA Class A pro, and though he doesn’t offer lessons by the hour, he has been a solid source of golf know-how and expertise in the clubhouse and on the tee line, when needed.
One of the center’s real strengths is club fitting and both Nelson and Hill are more than qualified to help Fairfield live up to its published promise of providing the “right club for your game.”
The pro shop features top brands such as Callaway, TaylorMade, Ping, Nike and Titleist and a Henry-Griffitts fitting system. Kocheck is proud of his staff’s expertise in golf clubs and readily defers to them in all such golf-related matters.
“I love to meet the customers but I don’t try to sell them clubs,” he says. “If John or Pete aren’t here, I always tell them to wait until they get back. Both of them are so knowledgeable, I guarantee they can get you the right club.”
Hill is leaving full-time employment at the center this fall to become an elementary school teacher, though he’ll stay on part time. Kocheck already has some more good people ready to step in and help at the facility, and one of the future upgrades Kocheck hopes to implement is a separate teaching room along the tee line with an overhead door and video capabilities.
Seeing What Works Best
Fairfield Golf Center has 32 covered and heated stalls on the tee line, and another 30 grass stations and 10 additional uncovered stations with mats. The tee line looks out over a 330-yard by 375-yard landing area with five target greens, ranging from 100 to 225 yards.
The center also offers a 6,000-square-foot putting green and a 3,000-square-foot chipping green, both bentgrass and free of charge to customers who purchase a bucket of balls.
Fairfield stopped offering memberships for discount buckets because Kocheck thought it wasn’t a good system to encourage family business at his facility. “The thing about memberships is that it makes the place almost a class system,” he says. “And you can’t have that. The ones with memberships are going to want something more than the guy who just walks in and buys a bucket of balls, and I just don’t like the way it separates people who use your facility.”
Kocheck also has some interesting ideas about advertising. Though members of his teaching staff have offered instructional tips in the three local community newspapers that serve the region, Fairfield Golf Center doesn’t advertise regularly.
“I went to a PGA show one time and they had a speaker and he said that your business as a range owner comes from within 17 miles of your facility, and if you think it comes from farther than that, you’re misled,” Kocheck recalls. “Every bit of advertising I do, I put out there on that sign [in the front of the facility] and on our bulletin board [in the clubhouse].”
Fairfield won’t be getting into the restaurant or snack bar business either. Chips, candy and drinks are sold over the counter and there’s a couple of tables set up inside to give patrons a place to relax but that’s as much food service as Kocheck wants to get into these days.
“We’ve got ice cream, too, and everything but something cooked,” he says. “I don’t think my wife would like that. She has done enough cooking in her day.”
Kocheck isn’t sure what the long-term future holds for Fairfield Golf Center. He’s not relinquishing his duties anytime soon, he says, and he’s not in a hurry to worry about the long term. Heck, it took him nearly 35 years to acquire the land the center occupies. He bought it piecemeal in about eight separate purchases, adding to farmland around his family home, beginning when his then-young daughters wanted a pony.
“A piece would become available and it just made sense to keep buying,” he says. “I got it all together about 15 years ago and developed it with two businessmen and a [golf] pro. Then we leased it. I was working in construction then. I don’t see letting it go [through another lease] again, though.”
Kocheck’s son-in-law, Juan Carlos Rojas, designed the clubhouse 11 years ago, another indication of just how much a family operation Fairfield Golf Center truly is today. And now that the golf center is in family hands, Kocheck finds that he’s just having too much fun to let anyone else in town think about taking over.
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